[Sigia-l] Just b/c I love a good Mac/Win flame war ... ; ) ... seriously though

[Brett Taylor]

And you forgot, cost, most of the time you can get a PC for a lot less,
but then the way pcs are built today, you are replacing them every
couples years, where a MAC you can keep for a long time; less breakdown.
And with todays software, no more piriting, or limited as any big name
vendors now force you to activate the software so you can't share.

 


brett taylor + R O U N D A R C H + bus 312.529.2502 + mob 773.844.5233 +
web www.roundarch.com


-----Original Message-----
From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On
Behalf Of Todd Warfel
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 11:34 AM
To: Fred Beecher
Cc: IA List
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] Just b/c I love a good Mac/Win flame war ... ;)
... seriously though


On Apr 5, 2006, at 5:34 PM, Fred Beecher wrote:

> Why do people buy Macs? I'll make a reasonable guess that it's based 
> primarily on some aspect of "usage experience." It comes with all this

> easy to use, simple software that facilitates your "digital life," and

> it looks and feels slick and hip. It's just fun to use a Mac. What 
> holds people back from buying Macs? They need to do stuff that there's

> no Mac software to do, or the cross-platform stuff they use doesn't 
> play as nicely as it should.

In my experience, most people buy Macs because the of the experience,
ease of use and lack of security/virus issues. It's not the perfect OS,
but it's currently the easiest to use with the lowest security/ virus
issues and some great iLife products.

What's holding them back? Not what you'd suggest. If there's software to
do it on Windows, there's the equivalent to do it on the Mac 99% of the
time. And the reverse is true. In fact, in many cases, especially
graphics software, the equivalent software on Windows actually lacks
many of the keyboard shortcut commands that exist on the Mac side (e.g.
Illustrator).

What holds them back, in my experience, is:
a) I can get "free" software from friends for my PC (yeah, pirated
stuff). Of course they can also do that for the Mac, but it's just as
illegal
b) All they know is Windows and they incorrectly think that using OS X
is vastly different. The fact is that Win and OS X are very similar in
many functions, so that's not a huge hurtle to overcome, but a hurdle
none-the-less.
c) The cost of purchasing cross-grades or the equivalent for their Mac.
They have the software at work and can take it home to install on their
Win machine. Less likely with the Mac.
d) In the rarest case, sometimes the corporate environment they work in
does require some things that don't work on the Mac (e.g. activeX,
Access). This is extremely rare, but does occur.


Cheers!

Todd R. Warfel
Partner, Design & Usability Specialist
Messagefirst | designing and usability consulting
--------------------------------------
Contact Info
Voice:    (607) 339-9640
Email:    todd at messagefirst.com
AIM:       twarfel at mac.com
Blog:      http://toddwarfel.com
--------------------------------------
In theory, theory and practice are the same.
In practice, they are not.


------------
When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
*Plain text, please; NO Attachments

Searchable Archive at http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/

IA 06 Summit.  Mark your calendar.  March 23-27, Vancouver, BC.
http://www.iasummit.org/


________________________________________
Sigia-l mailing list -- post to: Sigia-l at asis.org Changes to
subscription: http://mail.asis.org/mailman/listinfo/sigia-l